(a) Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an air cushion pad that provides multiple modes of shock absorption and impact cushioning and is applicable to cushioning materials that bears pressure load, such as shoulder pads, seat cushions, wrist protectors, and shoe insole, and sports gloves that require shock absorption and impact cushioning for a contact surface or internal lining cushion of sports helmets.
(b) Description of the Prior Art
Impact cushioning and shock absorption materials that are commonly available in the market include rubber pads, foamed material pads, or air sack pads, which are applicable to different fields requiring different aspect of cushioning protections. Tanking sports glove, such as batting gloves worn by a batter of base ball, as an example, the batting gloves are made of fabrics or leathers and a batter wears the gloves to isolate the bat and his or her hand skin in order to eliminate potential risk of skidding caused by sweat when the batter tightly holds the bat and thus allowing the batter to well control the direction of force application when he or she swings the bat to hit a ball. The batting glove is often provided with a shock absorption cushion pad, which is a thin pad for hand compliance as well as absorption of shock to eventually improve the performance of hitting.
As to sports helmets, some are known from for example Taiwan Patent Application No. 97217691, which discloses a sports helmet in which an inner lining made in the form of air permeable air sack through injection molding of rubber is arranged. The inner lining has a surface forming a plurality of projecting pillars and is coupled, at the same side, to a cushion pad made of a stiffer resilient material. On the coupling surface, the cushion pad forms a plurality of cones to couple to resilient hollow air passage posts of the air sack inner lining. For such a lining cushion device, since the inner lining set on one side is made in the form of permeable air sack and has a surface forming a plurality of projecting pillars, when it is subjected to a great impact force, the rubber made projecting pillar provide an effect of cushioning due to the material thereof, but the force that they can bear is only that having a component in a normal direction. Further, the air sack, due to the air enclosed therein being set in a predetermine space, is only capable to bear a force component of an impact that is in the normal direction, and the performance of resistance against a force in a transverse direction is poor because of the enclosed air sack being not supported in the transverse direction, which leads to poor cushioning performance when compressed by an external force. Thus, such a cushion pad does not provide high performance of cushioning.
In view of above discussed problems, it is desired to have an air cushion pad that is of a unique structure for applications of both light and heavy impacts or shocks to offer excellent effects of shock absorption and impact cushioning for both applications.